Dermatology World August 2011 : Page 28

REVERSING COURSE said, it helps to have as much documented fact as possible on your side. “Although it’s not legally required, it’s a great idea to document everything. If you have a le for each employee, if there’s been any kind of a problem, you want to have that documented. If you have to counsel them or give them some kind of warning, you have to have that documented,” Koury said. “If there’s litigation, it’s going to be up to the former employee to show that there was an illegal reason for their termination. Someone told me once that litigation isn’t necessarily about the truth, it isn’t about right or wrong, it’s about what you can sell. If you have the documentation showing you have the right reasons for terminating an employee, you’re most likely going to come out okay.” During the communications process, Sergay said, physicians can often nd the root of an employee’s performance troubles and address MOVING ON Despite the best intentions of all involved, sometimes an employee is unable to thrive in the current practice setting. If a performance improvement metric can’t be met, Neal Bhatia, M.D., said, it is likely best for the employee involved to part ways with the practice. He said that this decision is often the most agonizing one a practi-tioner has to make. “That’s one of the most frustrating aspects of managing a practice — weighing the cost and time of terminating someone and bring-ing in someone new versus the potential detriment to your prac-tice that keeping an incapable employee can do,” he said. “But if you set out on this three-month plan and by the end of the process you’re still taking a couple hours a week to correct them and coach the employee, and their work hasn’t gotten any more reliable, then it’s not helping anything to keep them at the practice.” In addition to concerns about job duties, Clifford W. Lober, M.D., J.D., said that it’s important to define what behaviors will not be tolerated in one’s practice, list them in the employee manual, and note that employees in violation of these rules will be terminated. “There are certain employee behaviors which can’t be tolerated, such as sexual harassment or theft. There are things for which there has to be zero tolerance,” Dr. Lober said. “One time is one time too many, period.” Almost equally harmful, Dr. Bhatia said, is a staff member with negative morale. In addition to underperforming, he said, mal-contented employees can poison the well by forcing other staff members to worry about their attitude and performance on a daily basis. “Their morale is destructive. The nickname for that in the office is the ‘staff infection,’ one employee with a bad attitude can become a polarizing influence on the practice,” Dr. Bhatia said. “It gets to the point where no one’s focused on their job, they’re just con-sumed with interactions with that one person. That really affects job performance, because the focus on efficiency is lost,” he said, and other employees start to have negative feelings about their work situations. In addition to exhaustively documenting their efforts to improve a departing employee’s performance, Los Angeles attorney Ken Koury, J.D., said that employers will often offer a modest sever-ance to head off any potential legal troubles down the road. “In addition to prevention, another thing that some employers do is offer severance pay in exchange for signing a release promising not to sue. Unless there’s a contract, no one is required to give any kind of severance pay,” Koury said. “But in order to buy peace, they will offer severance pay based on the length of time worked and the signed release. [The employee] waives all claims they have against the employer.” Though practitioners rightly express concern at the prospect of a lawsuit, Koury said that offering severance is a measure that often serves to cool down the situation. The physician can either broach this topic during the termination conversation, or extend the offer shortly after the employee has had time to process the event — within the week at most. Most employees, he said, are happy to receive compensation on their way out. The amount offered varies greatly depending on the nature of the termination, the employee’s ending salary, and the length of their tenure with the practice. Those who are already determined to file suit, he said, may accept the settlement — and if they don’t, they were already planning to sue. 28 DERMATOLOGY WORLD // August 2011 www.aad.org

MOVING ON

Despite the best intentions of all involved, sometimes an employee is unable to thrive in the current practice setting. If a performance improvement metric can’t be met, Neal Bhatia, M.D., said, it is likely best for the employee involved to part ways with the practice. He said that this decision is often the most agonizing one a practitioner has to make. “That’s one of the most frustrating aspects of managing a practice — weighing the cost and time of terminating someone and bringing in someone new versus the potential detriment to your practice that keeping an incapable employee can do,” he said. “But if you set out on this three-month plan and by the end of the process you’re still taking a couple hours a week to correct them and coach the employee, and their work hasn’t gotten any more reliable, then it’s not helping anything to keep them at the practice.” In addition to concerns about job duties, Clifford W. Lober, M.D., J.D., said that it’s important to define what behaviors will not be tolerated in one’s practice, list them in the employee manual, and note that employees in violation of these rules will be terminated. “There are certain employee behaviors which can’t be tolerated, such as sexual harassment or theft. There are things for which there has to be zero tolerance,” Dr. Lober said. “One time is one time too many, period.” Almost equally harmful, Dr. Bhatia said, is a staff member with negative morale. In addition to underperforming, he said, malcontented employees can poison the well by forcing other staff members to worry about their attitude and performance on a daily basis. “Their morale is destructive. The nickname for that in the office is the ‘staff infection,’ one employee with a bad attitude can become a polarizing influence on the practice,” Dr. Bhatia said. “It gets to the point where no one’s focused on their job, they’re just consumed with interactions with that one person. That really affects job performance, because the focus on efficiency is lost,” he said, and other employees start to have negative feelings about their work situations. In addition to exhaustively documenting their efforts to improve a departing employee’s performance, Los Angeles attorney Ken Koury, J.D., said that employers will often offer a modest severance to head off any potential legal troubles down the road. “In addition to prevention, another thing that some employers do is offer severance pay in exchange for signing a release promising not to sue. Unless there’s a contract, no one is required to give any kind of severance pay,” Koury said. “But in order to buy peace, they will offer severance pay based on the length of time worked and the signed release. [The employee] waives all claims they have against the employer.” Though practitioners rightly express concern at the prospect of a lawsuit, Koury said that offering severance is a measure that often serves to cool down the situation. The physician can either broach this topic during the termination conversation, or extend the offer shortly after the employee has had time to process the event — within the week at most. Most employees, he said, are happy to receive compensation on their way out. The amount offered varies greatly depending on the nature of the termination, the employee’s ending salary, and the length of their tenure with the practice. Those who are already determined to file suit, he said, may accept the settlement — and if they don’t, they were already planning to sue.

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